


I Will Follow You Into The Dark

by gamerInsomniac



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Demon Dave, Demon Dirk, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-05
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 02:54:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4730126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gamerInsomniac/pseuds/gamerInsomniac
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave Strider is a demon who sucks at his job. After a major screw up, he is given an assignment to find a certain supernatural hunter John Egbert. What he doesn't know, is that this dork is actually a part of a prophecy that could change the entire fate of the world as they know it. This may be the hardest job Dave has had yet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Second Chance

**Author's Note:**

> First time writing anything in a while, so I hope this story turns out okay. Also I hope I actually finish this one this time.

      My name is Dave Strider, and I am demon. A pretty shitty demon, but still a demon. And I am currently sitting in a waiting room hating my life. Sure, it’s a pretty nice waiting room with okay seating and decorative plants and all that shit, but the reason for why I hate my life can be found in the next room. I am currently waiting to go see my brother, the fucking prince of hell, for punishment because I suck at my job. I recently had a contract to kill my client’s husband’s mistress, but then it turned out the broad had made a contract to have a demon kill my client. Guess who ended up dead first? My client. And since I didn’t kill the mistress before she died, our contract was made void, meaning we didn’t get to keep her soul. So now my brother is pissed at me even though it was that fucking demon’s fault this even happened. I begin to tap my foot, and look up at the clock on the wall. I was supposed to go in 10 minutes ago what the fuck. Dirk has never been good with time like I have, but still its fucking unprofessional. If he’s going to be in charge of the corporate bullshit that is demon work, then he should stick to his fucking schedule.  
      I am interrupted in my brooding by Dirk’s secretary, Kanaya, knocking on the doorway. “Hello Dave. Mr. Strider is waiting for you. Follow me, please,” she says politely to me. I push myself out of the chair and walk after her.  
      “How have you been, Kanaya? Haven’t seen you in a while,” I ask her after a while of walking down the oddly long hallway that leads to Dirk’s office.  
      “I have been well. Working for Mr. Strider can be hectic at times, but he is enjoyable to work for. Plus, the job pays well,” she smiles and looks over at me. “That reminds me, Rose told me to tell you to take the red one, whatever that is meant for. You know how it is with her and her future sight,” she chuckles lightly and goes to the door we finally fucking arrived at. “In you go, Dave. And good luck,”  
      I smile at Kanaya, quietly wondering what the fuck that red thing means, and go into the office. She closes the door after me, and I take a seat across from my brother’s desk. He spins around in his chair and glares at me with his gleaming orange eyes. I gulp, but do my best to seem nonchalant.  
      “Hey, bro. How’s it hanging?” I ask in a monotone voice as I lean back in my chair.  
      “Shut the fuck up Dave. You know why you’re here,” Dirk states coldly. “You clearly didn’t look into a contract as much as you should have before making a deal, like you always should so this kind of dumb shit doesn’t happen. Now we have a void contract and a dead client whose soul goes up top. This was a rookie mistake and due to corporate law I should either fire you or demote your ass. There are plenty of demons down here who can fill your spot. However,” Dirk goes on to say, “You are my brother, and next in line to take the throne if I should die. So, I’m going to make you a deal,”  
      “What kind of shit are you playing at here?” I ask hesitantly.  
      “What I’m playing at, is that I would rather not spoil our family’s reputation even if you’re a screw up. I’m trying to do something nice for you so shut up and listen to me,” He states to me, waiting for me to say anything. When I cross my arms and stay quiet, he continues. “Now, There is a kid in a small town in the US I need you to take care of. He is just a pest who plays ghost hunter and pokes his nose in the supernatural with his buddies. Now, I don’t need you to kill him per se, but I need you to scare him and his buddies away from messing with our business. However, if you can’t scare him off, I’ll need you to take more desperate measures, got it?”  
      I grunt, and ask “Why this kid though? What’s so important about him? Isn’t he just, yaknow, just a kid?”  
      Dirk looks down at his papers and begins to organize them on his desk neatly. “Why the contract is needed is none of your concern, Dave. Now, do we have a deal?” Dirk stands up and reaches across his desk to me, and his hand catches a brilliant orange flame. He looks down at me expectantly.  
      “Fine, deal,” I say as I shake his hand, officially bonding me to the contract. “Now, when do I get started? Do I work with anybody or am I doing this solo?” I ask.  
      Dirk smirks and says, “You start now. Solo. Good luck, kid,” and he snaps his fingers, teleporting me in a portal of fire. I fall and land in a ditch, feeling pain throughout my spine.  
      “Fucking hell you prick. Give a guy a little warning next time,” I mutter to myself, getting up and brushing myself off. I’m wearing the same clothes I was, but I can tell that I now appear human. I take a look at my surroundings because seriously where the hell am I. I see open fields and nature shit, and im standing next to a road. I see above my head is a street sign, so I take a couple steps back to get a good look. On it says “Welcome to Skaia”. Where the everloving hell is Skaia? I groan to myself. Ah well, better check it out I guess. So I start walking into the city limits to check this shitty town out. I know this is basically community service, but couldn’t I have been given a taxi or something at least?


	2. Welcome to Skaia

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the second chapter! It's a bit longer than the last one.   
> Also, quick violence warning for this chapter!

            After about a half hour of walking, I finally arrive in what looks like downtown. Skaia is a small, quaint little town that is bustling with local life. The locals go about their daily lives in content obliviousness to the world around them. There is a few shops, a movie theater, and some food joints, but that’s about it. I try to keep my head down and avoid eye contact with anyone who comes close. I really wish I could have had time to grab my shades. Whenever I go to the world of the living, I take the form of a human. Only problem with this is that I keep my abnormal red eye color. I mean, it is very common amongst my kind, but in a small town like this, it’s really not a good trait to have. So, I think quickly and go into the first store I see that sells clothing.

            A little bell goes off as I go through the door, and the cashier waves at me happily. She asks if I need help finding anything, and I shake my head and head to the back of the store. I find the sunglasses rack along a wall and pick a pair of dark black aviators. I try them on my face and look in the small mirror next to the rack. They hide my eyes pretty well, and I look like a fucking badass in them. I decide to keep them on and will pay for them up front. I go up to the cashier and look at what all is up there. I grab a pack of cinnamon flavored gum and put it on the counter.

            “Do you need anything else sir?” the girl asks very kindly. I ask if they have any phones per chance.

            “Oh yeah! I mean, we don’t officially sell phones here, but from the past couple of years people keep leaving phones here and never coming back for them, so we end up stuck with them. I doubt my boss would mind much if I gave you one. Just wait one sec,” She said excitedly and skipped into a room behind her, soon returning with a small flip phone in her hand. As I get my wallet out to pay, she stops me.

            “Hey, wait a minute! How about we strike a deal?” I quirk an eyebrow and let her continue. “We are having a special on hoodies since it’s finally getting chilly out. I haven’t been able to sell any all week and my boss is getting pissed at me for it. So, if you’ll get one of these hoodies for me, I’ll give you the phone for free! How about it?” She finishes as she smiles and waits for me to answer. I think about it for a moment, and figure I don’t have that much cash anyway (I can thank Dirk for that. Asshole didn’t even let me go get some of my mortal money before I left. All I have left is the leftovers from my last mission.), so I decide sure, why not. Let’s get the stupid fucking hoodie. It is kinda cold up here anyway.

            “Yeah sure, fine. I’ll take one,” I say to her as she lights up and goes back into the room to fetch the hoodie. When she comes back, she is holding two hoodies.

            “These are the only two colors we have in stock. I know it’s a kind of shitty selection, but hopefully one of them is to your liking!” She says apologetically. One of the hoodies is blue and the other red. I don’t really care. However, I faintly remember Rose’s fortune telling bullshit about something red. So, I decide to get the red one and hope this is what she meant because damn her messages are always so vague.

            “Red one’s fine. I wear a medium,” I tell the cashier and she looks so relieved I feel sorry for the poor girl. I mean yeah they aren’t the best hoodies ever but not even selling one?

            “Thank you so much, sir! And I promise you’ll get your free phone!” She tells me as she goes back to the room to get a medium red hoodie. When she comes back, she tallies up the cost on her cash register. “That will be $17.33. We only take cash, I hope that’s okay,” I grunt in affirmation and pull out a $20 and give it to her. She gives me back my change and puts my stuff in a plastic bag and hands it to me. “Hope you enjoy your stay in Skaia sir!” She says merrily to me as I wave and walk out the door.

            I walk down a bit until I come across a bench, and I sit down and rummage through my bag. I slip on the hoodie and the sunglasses, instantly feeling a lot less anxious. I also take out a piece of gum and pop it into my mouth, and put the pack, along with the small phone, in the hoodie’s pocket. As I place them in there, I feel a folded up piece of paper. Confused, I pull it out. I unfold it and turns out it’s a coupon. Free milkshake and a small fry at some local diner. And oh look lucky me, it hasn’t expired yet. Finally, something good to happen to me. I look at the address on the coupon, and start walking again.

            After a while, I find the worn down diner. I step inside, and am instantly greeted by the hostess. She leads me to a small booth near the window, and I slip inside. As I wait for my waitress, I stare out the window. This is a very small town, so it shouldn’t be too hard to find the boy, right? The waitress comes up to me and very monotonously asks what I want. I give her the coupon and ask for a strawberry shake if they have one. She takes it and says she’ll be back. After a couple minutes, she returns with a tall glass of strawberry milkshake and a small basket of fries. I take them, muttering a thank you, and dig in. If there’s one thing I like about being amongst the living, it’s the food. You just can’t get this kind of glorious fattiness and sugary flavor back in Hell. Everything is healthy and natural, like fresh barbeque or fruits and veggies. I mean, it isn’t bad, but it isn’t _this._

As I’m enjoying the last bit of my fries, a small group of 20 something year olds come in. The hostess greets them like they are friends, and leads them to the bar. They are talking amongst one another, which isn’t very interesting, so I go to take my attention back to my food. And that’s when I heard him laugh.

            It wasn’t a very loud laugh, but enough to catch my attention. Once I looked up at him, I froze. It was definitely the kid I was looking for. Now, I had no idea what he looked like before this, since demons only get to know the information about their targets once they find them. It’s a very shitty system and makes everything very complicated, but oh well. Once I saw him, a few things triggered in my mind. His name was John Egbert, he was 22 years old, and he was tall. Taller than me I might add. He had thick black glasses on his face, slightly bucked teeth that only really showed when he smiled, black hair, and a pair of brilliant sapphire eyes that were looking right at me – wait shit.

            I quickly ducked my head so he wouldn’t see my face. I could hear him giggle – yes, I said giggle – and he turned his attention back to his friends. I tried my best to eavesdrop.

            “…last mission was a success. But as we all know, we need to choose another one if we want to have enough money to survive. Because food, hotels, and equipment all cost money. Now, we would have been able to take a small break and enjoy ourselves a bit, if Jake hadn’t ran over that road spike and popped all our tires last time,” A small blonde girl with a sophisticated, deep voice said as she glared at a tan, muscular man who must be Jake.

            Jake whined and said in a British accent, “It wasn’t my fault some asshole thought it would be funny to put them on the road! I would have liked to see you try to avoid them, Rose,”

            Rose smirked and continued on, “I’m sure I would have done better than you. Anyhow, we need to focus on the matter at hand. We have a few potential clients, but one who seems to be offering the most money for our services is only on the outskirts of town. He is Mr. Marshall, no first name included, and he is asking about what he believes to be a poltergeist. Sounds like a simple job, if you guys are up for it,” Both Jake and another muscular girl with long black hair and glasses nodded. “Good. Now, John, you are the one to make the ultimate decision since you are the leader of our little business. What do you think?”

            John beamed and said, “I think we should go for it! Ghosts are right up our alley!”

            “Alright then, it’s settled. I’ll reply to our client and tell him we will take the job. His original message said he would be okay with us coming over whenever, as long as it is soon. So how does around 10 tonight sound? That way we should be able to give our client plenty of time to prepare for our arrival,” Rose said as she typed something up on her laptop. I may have imagined it, but I swear she winked at me as she finished her sentence. She also went on to say, “His address is 413 Prospit Lane. I believe that is to the north of town, right Jade?”

            The other girl, who I assume is Jade, replied, “Yep! I used to live up there, remember?”

            “Oh, yes, I nearly forgot. Now, how does ordering to go sound? Since we now have to prepare for tonight, it may save us time to just eat in the van.” Rose states as she packs her laptop back up.

            “Sure, I don’t see why not. It’ll take a while to check all of the equipment anyway. Hey, waitress!” John said as the waitress came up to him. They all ordered their food, waited a while, and then left with baggies full of food. As they left, I watched as they all piled into a large white van with ‘Paranormal Hunters’ painted on the side in blue spray paint. As they pulled away, I left a few dollars of tip on the table and left the diner. I walked until I got to a small alleyway, and pulled out my phone. I tried to turn it on, but it was dead. Fuck.

            Concentrating, I used some of my magic to power the phone. I felt energy leave my body in small amounts until I felt it was good enough. I stopped, and attempted to turn the phone on again. This time, it actually started up. I then dialed 666 into the phone and put it up to my ear. It began to ring, until a croaky voice asked for my status code.

            “Filius daemonis regem,” I spoke into the receiver. It was silent for a while, until another voice answered.

            “Hello, Dave. Is there anything I can do for you?” Kanaya answered in a kind tone.

            “Hey Kanaya, I need a favor or two. Can you maybe send up my stash of mortal currency and my bike? I found the kid, but in order to do what I need to I need a ride and some cash,” I asked her.

            “Sure, I’ll get someone to get that for you right away. They should be there by the time we finish our call. Is there anything else you need?” Kanaya asked me politely.

            “Thanks. And not really. Oh, by the way, I get what Rose’s message meant. It was about a hoodie I bought. It had a coupon in it that lead me to a diner where I spotted the kid,” I told her.

            “That’s fantastic, Dave. I’m glad you made sense of her message. While I have you, she left me another message for you. She told me to tell you, and I apologize for the rudeness of it, that if you can’t put the two and two of this puzzle together, you’re an idiot. Again, I apologize. Oh, it appears Dirk needs me for something, so I have to go. Good luck with the mission, Dave. From what I’ve heard, you’re going to need it,” She told me as she hung up.

            "Thanks for the cryptic message, Kanaya, I appreciate it,” I mutter to myself as I put the phone back into my pocket. I round the corner back to the street and find – oh you’ve got to be shitting me.

            Leaning against a wall is a pink bicycle with purple streamers coming off the handles. On it lies a wallet and an orange note card. I pick up the note and read it. It says ‘Dear Dave, remember you’re still on probation. Did you really think I was going to let you have a motorcycle? Hell no. This job is supposed to be your punishment. So, enjoy your new ride, bro. – Love, Dirk’

            I really, really, really hate that guy sometimes. I crumble up the note and throw it on the ground, stuff the wallet in my pocket, and get on the god damn bike. I start going north.

\---

            By the time I arrive at the house, the sun had almost disappeared behind the horizon. I throw the bike into the bushes and scout out the house. It is a very large house, practically a mansion. There are a few lights on inside, so I go to find a back door. Lucky for me, I find one, and it’s even unlocked. This is just too damn easy. I sneak around the house until I find the kitchen. There, an old man stands, making popcorn over his stove. I look around for a weapon of sorts, and find a set of knives sitting on the counter near the doorway I am currently hiding in. I grab a large knife, sneak up behind him, and quickly slit his throat. I then grab a small towel and place it over his throat as to not get blood everywhere. I lay him on the ground and wait for him to die. Once his heart finally stops beating, I pick up the body and stuff it into a garbage bag. Then, I take the bag and throw it out into the dumpster out back (not sure why a huge dumpster is here, but it sure is helpful). I then find a sponge and some cleaning materials and begin to clean the blood out of the kitchen.

            After the 30 minutes it took to completely clean the kitchen is over, I search the house for the bedroom. I find a bedroom that appears to have belonged to the man’s daughter, and check the closet. Lucky for me, it appears she was about my age, and my size. I pick out a pair of dark skinny jeans and an oversized red plaid flannel. I button it up, look in the mirror, and realize that hey, I don’t look half bad. And my ass looks _great_. I run my hands through my blonde hair and make sure my glasses hide my eyes before leaving the room.

            The man appears to have lived alone, because all the other rooms besides his looked to have had visitors only once or twice a year. Now that I can relax, I go back to the kitchen and open up the bag of popcorn the man had been making before, yaknow, I slashed his throat. Lucky for me it was mostly done. Also lucky for me the man had taken it off of the heat as he was dying so it didn’t catch on fire or anything. I turn off the burner, and pour the popcorn into a bowl. I then go into the living room, turn on the tv, and sit in the recliner. I spend the next hour eating popcorn and watching the food network.

            After that time had elapsed, the power flickered, and a pot goes flying towards my head. I catch it, and nonchalantly say, “Now, is that any way to treat your superior?”

            The ghost then made himself visible, and stared at him wide eyed, “And wwhat exactly do you mean by superior! I am royalty! Howw _dare_ you speak to me like that?” He said in a very annoying voice.

            I smirk, and say, “What I mean is, I’m a demon. You know, someone whose ass you’re supposed to kiss until I make you a deal so you can get out of purgatory and become one of us?”

            The ghost seems to completely change his attitude at that. “Oh, that’s wwhat you meant? Silly me. Is there anything I can do for you, sir? Anything at all?”

            “Actually, there might be. You see, I’ve got contract to scare some kid out of the supernatural hunting business, and I think you could help me with that. He and his little team are heading over here soon, and if you could scare the living daylights out of him, maybe even rough him up a bit, then I might be able to make you a deal. Scare him away for me, and I’ll make you a demon. Deal?” I say, extending my hand to him as my hand catches a brilliant red flame.

            He doesn’t even take time to think about it before he shakes my hand. I chuckle. This is _way_ too easy. “Now, go about your business until they get here, alright? And you better think of something good before he arrives. Now, go,” I tell him. He nods vigorously and disappears again. I go back to watching the food network until I hear the doorbell ring.

            I turn off the tv and go to the door. I open it, smirk, and say, “Sup. You must be the Paranormal Hunters. Please, come in. Make yourself comfortable.”

            Now, let the fun begin.


End file.
